Buzz of last-minute 'shift' in Dhuri, but AAP confident
Parvesh Sharma
Sangrur, February 21
Amid talk of some SAD workers having tried to shift vote to the Congress to keep AAP’s chief ministerial candidate Bhagwant Mann at bay in the high-stakes Dhuri constituency, AAP leaders are confident of a win.
With the AAP raising the stakes by fielding Mann from the seat, various parties have pulled out all the stops to woo voters during campaigning.
“We are aware that several local SAD leaders tried to shift their votes to the Congress to prevent Mann from winning. But they won’t succeed as a majority of their voters had already decided to vote for the AAP. Many SAD voters rebelled against their own party. Mann will win by a big margin,” claimed Anwar Bhasaur, district president of AAP’s minority wing.
The segment has 74 villages with Dhuri city being the only urban area. Farmers’ concerns and lack of development have remained the main issues in this primarily rural constituency. Of the total 1,64,322 voters, 86,593 are male, 77,721 female and the remaining eight third gender. In the last Assembly elections, Congress candidate Dalvir Singh Goldy had polled 49,347 votes to defeat AAP’s Jasvir Singh Jassi Sekhon, who got 46,536 votes. Refuting the claim, SAD-BSP nominee Parkash Chand Garg said: “These are baseless assertions as our leaders have worked hard to increase SAD’s vote share.”
On his part, Sangrur district Congress committee president Mahinderpal Singh Bhola claimed since his party had brought about development in Punjab, their candidates managed to draw votes from supporters of SAD, AAP and other parties.
Barring the Congress, the three other main parties — the SAD, BJP and AAP — had fielded outsiders. While AAP’s Mann belongs to Satauj village in Dirba constituency and stays in Sangrur, SAD-BSP’s Garg hails from Bhawanigarh in Sangrur. BJP candidate Randeep Singh Deol, who is also the district president, belongs to the Sangrur constituency. Goldy belongs to Punnawal village and stays in Dhuri along with his family.
